Welland Half Ironman Race Report

Today was the Welland Half Ironman, my first half of the year. To get ready, I woke up at 5:30 am very tired. I probably only got 4 hours of sleep and the Wedding Anniversary celebration two nights earlier didn't help.

I drove from home and got to the race site around 7:30 am and picked up my race kit and got lucky number "123". It took no time to set up my gear and as chance would have it, there was a guy who was selling racing laces. I bought them and put them on my shoes. I was ready to roll.

I love small local races. Unlike official 70.3's where you have to pick up the race kits the day before and prepare all your gear in bags, you can just show up, put your stuff beside your bike and viola, you're ready to roll.

When I started my comeback in 2007, and even prior, I thought Half Ironman's were challenging and had a lot of respect for them. It was very similar to the mental preparation I'd have for an Ironman. I'd be thinking about the race for weeks leading up and be very nervous the night before and the day of.

Now it's different. With all the training hours and mileage I put in, I treat Half Ironman's like they were a Sprint or Olympic distance race. I even race them as such. I have no fear of the race distance, I consider it very civilized, like a half Marathon. Actually, I consider a half Ironman distance or anything above to be a real man's triathlon.

I was hanging out with Carlos and Hans before the race and Carlos commented that last year he was nervous and afraid of Half Ironmans. This year, he's on MAO and putting in lots of mileage and half Ironmans no longer feel like a big deal to him.

My race strategy for every Half Ironman is to give about 10% less effort than I do for an Olympic distance race. Today was no different. It was a mass, in water start and I positioned myself right in the middle, almost at the front. I don't know why, but in the past few races I look forward to the "washing machine".

In the past, I would start and swim to the outside, trying to stay away from people. I didn't want to get hit. I would also tend to panic or take in water if that happened. Since Steelhead 70.3 last year, where I had one of my best races and took the middle position, I haven't looked back since. I go for the gusto.

I figure, someone is going to be lucky enough to swim a direct path through the middle, "why not me?" Instead of me moving to the outside, I'll let the others do that. The water confidence I gained in this past year has allowed me to start to enjoy the "free for all" swim. It hasn't come easy. I remember my early races being scared of other swimmers in the open water and dreading the swim to the point where I had to supportively self-talk myself the entire swim.

Three minutes before the swim started, I had a slight mishap. My goggles fell apart, the removable lenses fell out into the water. There was immediate panic. I found one and luckily someone else found the other. It turns out the lenses were not clipped in properly.

All I could think of was "REID!!!!" I borrowed them to him and in consistent Reid fashion, he has to play with stuff and must have figured out they were removable and didn't clip them back in place properly. For those that have kids, you know first hand how your kids, especially boys, "break and lose your stuff". In any event, I was able to fix them and get out into the water in time for the start.

Every race my motto is "expect the unexpected".

In the water I didn't land too many shots or kicks, but I took my share. A couple stood out. The first was a couple of kicks to the jaw and the second was a smack to the calf just as we were exiting the water. It was so hard that my calf felt bruised as I ran to transition one after a 35 minute swim at a 1:47 per hundred pace. I was happy with that.

Along the way I heard "Hey Louie", it was Al Nolan and his son Michael cheering me on. "Louie" is the nickname Al gave me long ago. The two of them drove up to watch me, they have never watched a triathlon and Al is a future PFG. I keep telling him he needs to do a try-a-tri. Kudos to Al, he said my blog finally wore him down and he started working out last week with 30 minutes of running and biking each day.

T1 was uneventful, other than I forgot to bring my Ensure. I had a couple gels instead. I was expecting a flat and fast bike course and wasn't sure if my legs had the jam to average 36 kph or not. For the first 30 minutes the heart rate was in the high 150's and low 160's and I was averaging about 38 kph. It settled down to around 144 bpm after an hour.

The bike course roads were the best I've ever ridden on, very smooth. There was a slight wind but I couldn't tell what direction it was coming from and whether it was helping or hurting me. I wasn't as strong as I would have liked it to have been and was a little tired as I rode. On a better day, I think I could have averaged 37 kph plus with similar conditions. The winner averaged 41 kph.

It wasn't a big field, only 269 people, but seemed to have quality. There wasn't a lot of passing after the first 30 km and I got into a good rhythm. I think I only used about 2 or 3 gears all day. By the halfway point I made up 28 spots and was in 52nd position and worked my way down to 38th off the bike.

I forgot to mention it was a hot and humid day. Easily in the 30's with humidex. It wasn't too bad until the last hour of the bike and the run was hot. Thankfully the course was along the canal and had a decent amount of shade from the trees.

I was a little disappointed at the beginning of the run. I forgot to change my Garmin to Statue from metric. I don't understand racing in minutes per kilometer like I do minutes per mile. It sucked because I didn't know the metric equivalent for 7 minute mile. I think that hurt me. I didn't know what carrot I should be chasing.

My goal was to run as fast and relaxed as possible. I did the fist 5 km in 23 minutes and the first 10 km at 47 minutes and finished in 1:42. With only 3 kilometers left it was mentally tough and even though I would have loved to have stopped and walked, but I didn't want to stay out there any longer than I had too. The last kilometer couldn't end soon enough. I made up about 9 spots on the run and finished in 29th place overall.

I can truthfully say I ran the perfect race for my abilities and preparedness for today. After I crossed the finish line I was spent. It took about 20 minutes of water, coke and a piece of pizza to get back to mental normal.

Physically, I felt fine. My legs got a workout but weren't hurting. After a good stretching session they felt 90%. When I looked at the leader board, I saw I finished in 3rd place. I was surprised and happy and said to myself, "I still got it".

Later on, I checked again and the revised finishing sheets now showed I finished in 2nd place. I was only 6 minutes behind first and I think if I behaved myself on Friday night, I would have beat him. I showed up to race at about 75% of my potential.

Carlos had a "great race". He finished in 5:03 and that included 6 minutes to fix a flat on the bike. Hans finished in 5:34 and I heard he had a tough race and wanted to throw up the entire run. Both those guys have improved hugely over last year since joining MAO.

Carlos especially has drank the Mark Allen kool-aid and is training like a mad man. His improvement has been incredible. I hardly recognized Carlos arms, he now has veins running down his biceps that look like ropes. He was a world class swimmer as a kid and came out of the water in 28 minutes.

Overall the race was great. I loved the course. The competition was solid. The first 44 people finished under 5 hours and the first 168 people finished under 6 hours. The worst part of the race was waiting 2 hours for the podium presentations. I didn't want to leave without a photo for the blog. The medal was secondary. If I was to do it again, I'd leave earlier. On the ride home I was near falling a sleep and had to use strategies to stay awake.

I celebrated with some Amstel Light and KFC. Starting tomorrow it's back to eating well. I'm up 6 lbs to 186 lbs. It's been a LONG time since I've been over 185 lbs and I need to pull that back to around 180 lbs. I noticed I'm getting a little soft around the mid-section in the post race photo's. That's motivation enough.

Swim - 35:23 / 1:47 per 100 avg - 80 th fastest overall

T 1 - Long run to Transition - 2:13 / Transition 1:47

Bike - 2:30:08 / 36.0 kph avg / 36 th fastest overall

T2 - 55 seconds

Run - 1:42:28 / 4:52 per km average / 25th fastest overall

Overall - 4:52:28

Age Group - 2/25

Overall - 29 /269

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